


January Embers

by MyHeartBurnsThereToo



Series: My Heart Burns There, Too [1]
Category: IT (2019), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Spoilers for It Chapter 2, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 17:54:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20625125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyHeartBurnsThereToo/pseuds/MyHeartBurnsThereToo
Summary: Georgie was gone. Stan was gone. Eddie was gone. And no one seemed to know exactly what came next.





	January Embers

_“Your hair is winter fire, _

_January embers _

_My heart burns there, too.” _

_—Ben Hanscom _

Fault was not something easily placed.

It could be said that Mike was the one to blame, for dragging all of them back to this hell town with ulterior motives. Stan for being too afraid to face the past and making the choice to deny himself a future because of it. Bill, for that heroic speech he had given so long ago, that had somehow managed to rally a group of outcast kids and self-proclaimed losers to fight a supernatural, demonic force with nothing but household weapons and blind hope. Or maybe even Georgie, for donning that bright yellow raincoat and splashing his way down the street, smiling widely as he danced toward Death.

No. Not Georgie. He was the only one of them that was truly innocent in all of this. And now Georgie was gone. Stan was gone. Eddie was gone. Richie looked lost and Bill was ashen, knuckles white from the tight grip he had on his beer bottle. The mood of tentative acceptance that they had somehow managed at the lake was long gone, replaced with the dark and burning feeling of bitterness and white-hot fury.

Adrenaline, Beverly realized, had been an excellent distraction. But the adrenaline had since faded and the quiet that was left in its wake was somehow so much worse than its fear fueled predecessor. “So, what now? I mean, IT—Pennywise—it’s dead. We killed it.” Her voice came out much louder than intended in the silence of the room, and Beverly flinched at the sound. At least Bill’s staring match with the floor had been broken, bleary blue eyes focused in on her, blinking slowly.

“We go home. We leave and we live our lives.” His voice came out much quieter than hers had, his words softer and slurred—from the atmosphere in the room or the empty bottles scattered at his feet, she wasn’t sure. Beside her, Richie snorted out a sound that was too harsh to be a laugh and too clear to be a sob. It was something in between the two, but still managed to sound condescending all the same.

“Oh sure. Yeah, lets do that. Just run on home like none of this even happened and live our _fucking lives _like everything is absolutely fine! I don’t know about you guys, but I'm still in the middle of processing this shitshow and trying to work out who’s fault all of this is!” His words mirrored her own thoughts and for a long moment Beverly tried to fight for words to bring him some peace and came up empty. There was nothing she could say to bring him comfort, nothing she could do to bring Eddie back to him. Instead, she managed to wind an arm around his hunched shoulders and bring his limp figure crashing against her side in surrender. A look around the dimly lit room showed eyes filled with tears and grief, but the spark of understanding was missing from them—so they hadn’t noticed. And it wasn’t her secret to tell.

From her other side, the couch dipped slightly, and then Ben’s voice rang out gentle and sure. “It’s the fault of nobody in this room, Rich. It is and has always been IT’s fault. We did all we could, and we stopped that demon from taking anymore children and tearing apart anymore families.”

The body that had been so limp and defeated against her suddenly sprang to life with a snarl of, “That’s not good enough! That’s not _fucking _good enough! Georgie, Stan, Eddie—” his voice choked out suddenly and Richie stopped, one hand holding the edge of the couch in a vice-like grip, and the other clawing at his chest, right above his heart like he was trying to rip it out. “Eddie. And that’s it? They’re gone, and we just move on with our lives, like none of this happened? That is such _bullshit!_” And there it was. The spark of understanding in Ben’s eyes that made his whole frame soften with seemingly endless compassion.

“We don’t move on like it didn’t happen.” His words surprised her, and she wasn’t alone if the way Bill’s head jerked up was any indication. The atmosphere shifted again, and Ben seemed to feel all eyes on him, because his gaze was currently locked on his hands, clasped tightly in front of him. “We don’t move on like it didn’t happen. We move on _because _it happened. We pick up all of our broken pieces and reassemble until we almost resemble something whole. We take them with us everywhere we go, and we look for them in everything we see. Pennywise took them all from us, but he can’t take our memory of them. He can’t take the way they made us _feel._ We live on to honor them, and as one last ‘fuck you’ to IT.”

There was silence, and even if Beverly wanted to break it, her voice was having trouble working. Those brown eyes—caramel while reflecting the flickering fireplace—threatened to drown her, and she found herself going willingly, letting the tenderness and absolute _love _in his gaze fill her to the brim with a smoldering warmth, the icy glacier of fear and grief melting like butter on a stovetop. She wasn’t even sure when they had locked eyes and didn’t particularly care to know. Every second she spent not looking into his eyes seemed like a second wasted, and if this past week had shown her absolutely anything, it was that life was far too short for wasted time.

“Ben is right. We can’t move on like none of this happened, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t live despite it.” Mike spoke up for the first time since they had all shuffled back into the hotel lobby, broken and exhausted. His face was haggard and the deep grooves in the corners of his mouth and between his eyes spoke of countless sleepless nights, oceans of tears shed at the price of survival. Still though, he managed a twitch of his lips that could almost be called a smile, broken and cracked as it was. “It’s been a long day. A long few days. A long twenty-seven years. We are all exhausted and have early starts tomorrow. We need to sleep.”

Just as soon as the warmth had settled into her chest, it was snatched away again. The thought of after had somehow never occurred to her. Despite all the talk of moving on and living, what to do after she left Derry again had never crossed her mind, seeming so trivial compared to the life and death situations that they’d been facing. She couldn’t go back to Tom. She couldn’t. She _wouldn’t_. The scared girl that had stayed with him simply for the sake of having someone had long since burned to ash, and the woman who had taken her place refused to spend anymore of her life cowering under him. She still had her share of the company but going back to claim it meant going back and facing him once again. He would kill her. She wasn’t as strong as he was, not physically, and he had no qualms about getting violent, even if there were witnesses. He wouldn’t just let her walk away and—

“Bev?” Ben’s voice and a blink broke her from her thoughts, and she realized that the two of them were suddenly alone. Beverly wasn’t sure if she had actually mentioned it or if he’d read the confusion on her face because he quickly explained, “Everyone went up to their rooms. After Mike mentioned getting some sleep, there was kind of a reluctant agreement. You looked—distant. Lost in thought. So I stayed down here. Bill is staying the night in Richie’s room, so he’s not alone.”

“That’s a good idea. He’s been through a lot.”

Ben sighed, running a shaky hand through his hair and exhaling a trembling breath. “We all have. These past few days—“

And suddenly, the coil that had been wound up so tight inside of her snapped and Beverly lunged, her nose digging sharply into his cheek because of her abrupt movement. In apology, she ran her fingers through his hair before tightening her grip and dragging his mouth to hers. There was no gentle lead up, no sipping kisses or gradual build up. Their kisses were rough and frantic and broken, shards like glass and a million unsaid words littering the space between them every time they broke about for a desperate gasp of air. His hands somehow still managed to cradle her face instead of the rough tugs and sharp digging she was used to, and between every kiss she could hear her name whispered in a wrecked chant over and over and over again, _“Beverly, Beverly, Beverly.” _

Eventually the desperation waned, and their kisses got softer until they were just sipping little pecks that made her eyes water and her heart ache with love and affection, gratitude and lust. Ben’s breath was ragged against her face, sharp inhales and exhales that puffed against her tingling lips. Before he had the mind to say something or question her, Beverly leaned up for one last kiss and only pulled back enough to speak, letting their lips brush. “Can I stay with you tonight? Please? I-I don’t want to be alone.”

Dark eyes locked onto hers for a long second, but Ben nodded almost immediately, “Of course.”

* * *

The shirt she was wearing smelled like woodsmoke and old spice, the fabric soft and wonderfully light against her tender skin. Taking a shower had been a necessity as had turning the dial all the way to the left and scrubbing every ounce of her body under the scalding water with the rough hotel washcloth and some of Ben’s cedar scented body gel. The shower had helped but sitting cross legged on Ben’s bed as he slowly massaged her scalp and finger combed her hair was an entirely new sensation, one she knew she would crave more often than not. There was something deliciously addictive about the feeling of his gentle fingers in her hair and against her scalp, a sort of relaxation that made the horrors from the past few days fade into the back of her mind and coax forward a hazy feeling of pleasure.

Beverly let out a little moan of contentment and the soft chuckle from behind her made her knees feel weak and her stomach flip over. “I couldn’t help it. You are really good at this whole massage thing.” Strong arms laced around her waist and pulled her back into his chest, soft lips placing a featherlight kiss against the exposed skin of her neck. There was a calculated carelessness in the action, but the way his heart was hammering contradicted it. Drawing her knees up, Beverly turned and cocooned herself fully in his arms, burrowing against his chest and pressing an openmouthed kiss against his pounding heart.

“I dreamed of this; you know.” She could feel is Adams apple bob as he swallowed thickly, those arms tightening their grip minutely. “For twenty-seven years I carried that paper around in my wallet, to remind myself what love felt like. To prove that you were real, and out there somewhere. And I always thought that if it was meant to be—if _we _were meant to be, and my… my feelings for you weren’t just teenage hormones o-or the product of a fucked-up situation and gratitude—then we would meet again. We would be together. But I never thought it would happen like this. And I know it sounds juvenile, but it’s not fair. Hasn’t IT taken enough? Why does the best day of my life have to also be the worst day?”

There was no answer. And Beverly honestly didn’t think that he had expected one. It was the hotel lobby all over again, Ritchie absolutely destroyed and her not being able to find a single thing to say in comfort. At least, with Ben, words weren’t her only option. She didn’t lunge this time, instead moving slowly and shifting until she was straddling his lap. The kisses they traded now were an echo of the ones from mere hours earlier, both too raw and broken to match that level of desperation and intimacy. This wasn’t the time for lust and physicality, this was comfort in its most basic form. 

Ben’s breath wasn’t ragged this time when the kiss broke, everything was still gentle and soft, his fingers back on her scalp, hypnotic. “Stay with me?” His question was half muffled by her hair, but with his lips so close to her ear he sounded crystal clear. One look into his cautiously hopeful dark eyes confirmed what she already knew; he didn’t just mean the night. And she didn’t even have to think.

Beverly’s voice was hoarse as she whispered _“Of course” _and sealed her oath with a kiss. 


End file.
